Yoga Studio Must Move

After 23 years in its second-floor aerie by the arch, Yoga en Akumal will cede its space to CEA in April 2018. It’s hard to imagine the transition from incubator of intentions and gathering place where dreams find creative expression to security guard headquarters, but Santa Sofía, the director, is philosophical. Just as a hermit crab grows and exchanges one shell for another, larger one, Yoga en Akumal will make the transition in style.

To escape the noise and bustle of Playa del Carmen, Sofía arrived in Akumal in 2007. She liked that Akumal had no shrill police whistles directing traffic to disturb the harmony. Already a tantric practioner, she climbed the stairs and found Leticia Cordova in the studio, lying on her back, her legs over her head, feet touching the floor in halasana (plow) pose. The two women fell into instant conversation, which eventually led to Letty’s prediction that Sofía would become a yoga teacher herself. Two months later, Michael Stewart arrived and confirmed Letty’s prediction: Sofía could no longer deny the call.

As director of Yoga en Akumal, Sofía has incorporated instructors from an expanding international community of talented yoga teachers, sound healers, and practitioners. Aware of the tendency of some yoga schools to become cultish, she avoids dogma to ensure visitors to the studio feel comfortable. The result is a successful model of community space.

Just as the bougainvillea growing wild and thorny outside the windows continues to blossom, so too 23 years of asanas, mantras, and mudras, of exhortations to inhala and exhala profundamente will continue to infuse the walls and project love into the community. Change is coming.